Manly Dungeon Tiles

Dwayne over at The Gamers Closet just finished his second set of dungeon tiles.  Now these are not those sissy print on cardstock or cardboard flip maps.  No, no.  These tiles where made with POWER tools.  Real wood.  Real primer and paint.  These are man tiles.  You could use a wall section to knock out that annoying player in the group.  I think Dwayne even spilled real blood on some of them.  Go check them out. 

The blood, it's everywhere!

Homemade Dungeon Tiles

Check out my friend Dwayne over at the Gamer's Closet.  He's made some very cool homemade dungeon tiles.  Those are cool.  

Conclusion of a Campaign

Last night our group concluded our campaign. Dwayne had a true Point of Light setting for his world where a displaced group of followers of the Maiden were transported from another world where extinction was eminent. The new world we found ourselves in was no more welcoming, but here we had a chance to survive, rebuild and hopefully one day return.

Upon arrival we were discovering many wonderful things we had no knowledge of. Most civilization was driven underground as demons and brimstone warlocks terrorized the surface and their only real competitor was a massive undead army formed by the victims of the demons. Torrun of the Red Hand and Ambrose a Priest of the Maiden slogged through an alien world trying to piece together scraps of knowledge. It was a lot of fun discovering this world. Stereo types were twisted, what you thought were truths in the old world did not apply here. I think Dwayne did a great job at keeping us guessing and keeping it consistent at the same time.

Last night we concluded the campaign. Our characters found the castle of the avatar of the maiden. He told us truths that we were not surprised to hear, but meant we had to change the way we did things as an order or we would repeat the same mistakes once we returned to our home plane.

It ended with my character Torrun marrying a woman from one of the native villages bonding our two people together. With the work ahead of us there are still a ton of story lines Dwayne could explore, but I like where we ended it with the possibilities. Down the road when Dwayne wants to run his world again we can pick up our old characters or make up new ones in the present or years down the timeline to see the effects of our work. Either way I look forward to exploring this world and discovering more of its mysteries.

Thanks Dwayne for a campaign well run.

Castles & Crusades Adventure Playtest Concludes

Last night Dwayne and Rob completed the playtest of the adventure I designed using Castles & Crusades. They died and were turned into zombies. Running and playing in GURPS campaigns for years it was difficult to switch back to a 1st ed. state of mind.

Mistakes I made.
1. I thought I was in charge.
In the village of Aberton I had a handful of skilled NPCs who could assist the players if needed. There was a 1st level mage, 2nd level thief and ranger and a 3rd level barbarian available. Depending on how they interacted with the village they would get certain NPCs to join. The ranger and barbarian went with them. So the players being 1st level and the NPCs being higher made them feel as if they were being led around. I had the players take the lead the entire time and only had the NPCs as combat enforcements, but because the NPCs were higher level Dwayne felt that it took away some of the players' thunder.

The solution for this will be to take the NPCs down one level and make it more of a farming village atmosphere. Also, the players requested I draw a map of the village.

2. Any more people in here we’re gonna need a lubricant.
This mistake came in two parts. I originally made the mine with a scale of 10'/square then reduced it to 5'/square. Wow, did things get crammed. Then to make it worse I applied the number of monsters with a heavy hand. I didn't realize this until I started putting miniature tokens down and thinking, there is no room in here. The players used the small corridors to their advantage. They fell back and funneled the monsters through so only one could attack at a time. But because of the number of monsters they were still getting whittled down at an alarming rate.

The second part of this mistake was I had too many HD worth of monsters in the room considering the level of the players. I designed this adventure to be for 1st through 3rd levels. One or two good cracks from a zombie and all of a sudden Mr. Balls to the Wall fighter is having a very bad day. In one room I had 8 zombies, 16HD worth of critters. The players and I agreed that was too many.

The solution for this is I plan to keep the map at its 5'/square because it is a mine and the crammed spaces was the effect I was looking for, but for each room I am cutting the number of monsters in half. That one room where I described had 8 zombies, it was only a 10' x 15' room. This solves the cramped conditions and the reduction in HD per room.

3. Me and my Shadows.
As above I had some rooms with too many HD worth of creatures and in other rooms the abilities and challenge levels of some of the monsters I included were too high, like a Shadow. I had two Shadows in one area. With two 3HD creatures with an AC of 18 and a strength draining attack can cut the adventure short.

Solution, I think the Shadow is a good challenge so I am keeping one of them. The players will need to learn that sometimes hightailing it out of dodge is the better, wiser part of valor. You can't spend all that gold if you're dead.

4. Huh? How did we get here?
Usually this is something I do well, but for some reason did not bother to include it in this adventure and that is reason why the players would be involved. I like to develop three to five possible scenarios why the players would put themselves into the current situation. I like to have something better than, 'because that's where the action is'. Although I pretty much did that this time.

Solution, write the three to five hooks to get the players involved right away.

This is the first time I've playtested an adventure of mine and I learned a lot. When I finished writing the adventure I thought it was good, but did not see the problems until I played it. So thank you Rob and Dwayne for helping out and your suggestions will definitely make this a better adventure. I hope to have the adventure completed and posted by next week.



Where are you??

Castles & Crusades Adventure Playtest

Monday night Rob and Dwayne started going through my adventure module I'd designed from the C&C rules. I definitely enjoy the 1e feel of the system and the parts they simplify. Still being new to C&C the three of us worked out some combat glitches and I'm still getting a grasp on when you add a character's level to a roll.

The first part was a quick character creation. I let the players choose which of the two ways they would like to roll, 3d6 reroll ones or 4d6 and toss the lowest. Each would get six rolls and they could put them into any stat they chose. I want them to have competent characters and the system works well, a player does not unbalance the game due to great rolls. A quick purchase of items and off they went into wilderness.

There was little to no set up for this adventure. Something I need to add. I had them encounter a group of skeletons right off to have a sample combat and warm up those virtual dice. We use Fantasy Grounds 2 and Skype. Combat went well, but both had piercing weapons so all their damage was halved. During this sample combat Rob rolled a critical and I always like to see what the players want to do, double damage or automatic max damage. They opted for the max damage because some class skills already grant double damage.

The funniest part of the night was when they were fighting a skeleton warrior. Dwayne was firing arrows at it while Rob finished off another skeleton. When Rob was done he ran over to engage the skeleton warrior. Shooting through an occupied space is -4. We made the rule that if a player shot through that space and missed his target within that -4 he possibly hit the other player. Well Dwayne missed in that -4 span. I had him roll to see if he hit Rob. Natural 20! Rob screamed out, "You killed me man!" Automatic max damage put Rob six below zero. I couldn't talk for a minute or so because I was laughing so hard. Favorite part of my night.

After the battle both of them agreed they needed some sort of healer in the group. Rob recovered some of his hit points and we stopped there for the night. We plan on continuing the game on Thursday.

Once I finish running them through the dungeon, see what their suggestions are and what I think needs tweaked I will post it here. I hope everyone has a great gaming night. Laugh a lot and don't eat too many chips.

Gamers Closet

My friend Dwayne, the third in our group including me and Rob (Bat in the Attic), has finally opened up his spot on the blogosphere at Gamer's Closet. He is going to cause trouble, but that's okay because he knows what he is talking about. Well, most of the time. Should be interesting.

Random Ramblings #2

Last weekend our group, Dwayne, Rob and I got to sit down and play around a table. I'm not sure how many years it's been since we've done that. We continued on with Dwayne's campaign and my Paladin got his butt handed to him. Last week I was throwing critical like I bought them at the dollar store. This week I couldn't hit water if I fell out of a boat. Rob was turned into charred remains. Luckily we brought along competent henchmen. Remember players out there, henchmen, don't leave home without them.

I went out and bought another giant d20 that I could kill a bear with. A red one this time. Again, they don't really roll as much as drop to the table and make a crater.

Been reading through some old time dungeons to get a feel for the magic item dispersal. The blog below this one is the one I wrote about selecting magic items. It was good to take a look at T1 and some others. I plan to get into more of a discussion about the minor magic items and well-crafted items. I think it's interesting or I hope to make it interesting.

I've also completed more work on my project that I hope to release before the end of the summer. And I also hope to have my website up in running before too long. I've got a few reviews of gaming supplements finished and need to find a home for them.

Well, it's Saturday in the blogger world and it seems everyone is outside playing. So that is where I am headed. Outside.

Random Ramblings

It's Monday after work and about an hour before our game. Right now Rob and I are testing a setting Dwayne has developed. I'm playing a paladin of a defeated god trying to carve out a niche in a new world.

Over the weekend I was at my FNGS and bought a new d20. It's huge. When I came out of the gaming store I had a big smile on my face that made my wife nervous. I love fun gaming stuff like this. I think I could kill a bear with it. Whimpy did not like the new addition, but they are getting along fine now. In the picture you can see my new d20 'Big Brother' towering over the regular sized Whimpy.

I'm beginning the process of writing reviews for some of the gaming items I buy. RPGNow is one of my favorite sites. In the past I wrote reviews for video games, movies and other gaming supplements. Get free stuff, give an opinion. It's a good thing.

I'm working on a gaming supplement myself. Who isn't these days. I'll give more information about it later. Currently Rob and I are waiting for the release of Points of Light 2. I did the editing for the first and second PoL. If you've ever edited something you know its a thankless job although Rob is fun to edit because I get to joke with him and we work well together. Rob is working on an independent project that is shaping up nicely.

It's gaming time. Good gaming guys and gals. Have a good night and blog at you soon.

Different Age of Gaming

With my group of gamers the chance to sit around the table and sling dice is pretty much gone. While Rob and I only live on the opposites sides of town, the others in our group live in different states. A few years back we got Fantasy Grounds so we could play over the computer. Not quite as fun as sitting around a table discussing where we should order the pizza and what to get on it, but its good enough to do some gaming. Fantasy Grounds was a pain at first. It crashed or spewed out error messages. We spent more time patching and reconfiguring than playing. Now Fantasy Grounds works like a champ and with the addition of all the rulesets it is the best online tabletop on the market. All of us have fully licensed versions so if the GMing bug strikes us we can start uploading all the maps and pictures (although Dwayne should be banned from posting certain pictures). The current GM is Dwayne running a 4e GURPS campaign. Rob has some rules he is percolating and wants to test before he unleashes them. Waxing nostalgic for playing on the tabletop is fine, but because of Fantasy Grounds we can get together and sometimes more often than if we did live close by. Its easy to start drifting away from gaming as real world matters press in around you, but once you pick up the dice, create a character and meet with your friends it helps to take on those problems.

So on Sunday afternoon starting at 2pm til whenever Dwayne runs out of breath, I'll be sitting at my computer playing Torren of the Red Hand looking to find the guardian to the gates of hell. Much more interesting than an electric bill.

Welcome to Gothridge Manor

Welcome to Gothridge Manor. My place on the Web to talk about gaming old and new, good and bad and a whole lot of in between. I've been plundering dungeons and razing cities since the winter of '80.

I am placing the blame on my friend Dwayne for causing my 30 year fascination with orcs, liches, experience points and gold pieces. Dwayne brought home this ugly purple little booklet called B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. He didn't know how to play, but seemed really excited to give it a try. We raided the Yatzee game for dice (that's what we called them back then before we knew they were 6ds) and made up rules as we went along. I can't remember how we made characters, but I remember we used the Charisma attribute, rolled a d6 and that was how many followers we got.

On to the gameplay. Since we had nothing but B2 and a handful of six siders we decided that if a 1 was rolled that was a death. If a 6 was rolled that was a wound. Two wounds in one battle and you were dead. This is why all those followers were important. So for the next weeks we were happy throwing six siders. Experience points, what were they? Hit points, didn't need them. Miniatures were tiny candy bars. We had a blast. One night Dwayne would DM, the next night I would DM. Then the guy who he borrowed B2 from wanted it back. Crap.

We found two places in town that sold D&D stuff. The first place I went the guy behind the counter kicked me out of the store because I brought my book bag into the store and didn't leave it by the door. I didn't know. So the next place I went, I crept in and asked the lady if it was okay to come in. She said absolutely and showed me where all the gaming stuff was, which was limited to one shelf on the bottom at the back of the store. It was a hobby store and had a ton of airplane and train stuff. I'd never seen miniatures before. Lead figures with swords and bows, clerics with their arms raised and magic-users with staves taller than them. Oh, and the monsters were very cool even though I had no clue what most of them were. This instantly became my place. I bought my first set of D&D dice here and still have most of them to this day (except for my 12d which vanished in study hall one day).

I had money to buy one thing so I picked out the coolest looking module they had. I ran home to show Dwayne. He was excited also. He'd gone to the other store and had better luck than I did getting in. We showed each other our spoils of the day. Both of us had bought the same module S1 Tomb of Horrors. So for the next few months we took turns DMing the Tomb of Horrors. After that we made a pact to tell the other what they were going to buy.

So began my journey in gaming. Thanks for taking a look around. You're welcome to anything in the fridge, snacks are in the cupboard and the only rule is the last Coke is always mine.